She nodded. Just once. It was a jagged, microscopic movement, but in the silence of the library, it was a total surrender.
And he saw it.
He closed the distance, his mouth crashing onto hers with a primitive, starving passion that stole the very soul from her lungs. His tongue swept against hers, bold and demanding, tasting of heat and wine and a year of lost time.
He groaned low in his throat, a sound of pure, unbridled hunger, and his hand slid from the armrest to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her loose hair to tilt her head back. He drank from her as if he were a dying man, and Diana finally let go.
She dropped the book, her hands flying to his shoulders to grip the thin cotton of his shirt, pulling him closer until there wasn’ta single inch of air left between them. She had not known she could want like this, with a hunger so sharp it felt like a physical ache.
Her hands slid up the broad expanse of his chest, her fingers curling into the thin cotton of his shirt until the fabric strained. She pulled him closer, desperate for the friction, and he responded with a low growl that vibrated against her lips. His palm swept down the arch of her back, his fingers digging into the silk of her robe as he hauled her against him.
She felt the hard, rigid line of his body through their layers. A violent tremor rocked her, her knees going weak as she realized she was no longer in control.
He broke the kiss only to drag his mouth along the line of her jaw, his lips scorching a path down the sensitive curve of her throat. His breath was ragged, hot against her skin. When his teeth grazed the frantic pulse beneath her ear, her head fell back, her eyes fluttering shut as a soft, broken whimper escaped her.
Then, he sank to his knees. The movement was so sudden, it stole the air from her lungs.
“What are you?—”
He didn’t let her finish. His hands slid to her calves, his grip firm as he parted her knees. The heat of his palms through the thin silk made her shiver violently. His mouth followed the path his hands had carved, pressing a slow, soft kiss just above her ankle.
The world tilted on its axis.
His lips traced upward along the velvet inside of her calf, over the curve of her knee, higher still. Each kiss felt like a brand, a claim, a reverent exploration.
The silk of her nightdress pooled around her hips, and the cool air of the library bit at her skin, making her every nerve feel impossibly, agonizingly sensitive. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her knuckles white as she fluctuated between trying to pull him closer and trying to keep from falling out of the chair.
“Alexander,” she whispered, her voice a fractured, desperate plea.
He glanced up at her from beneath dark lashes, his mouth hovering just an inch below the lace edge of her nightdress, his hot breath fanning the skin of her inner thigh.
“Is this how the book describes it?” he murmured, his voice roughened into a growl.
The wickedness of the question made her entire body burn with a humiliating, beautiful fire.
“Yes,” she breathed, her hips lifting instinctively toward him.
A faint, dark curve touched his mouth. “Then I am improving.”
He pressed another kiss, higher this time, his tongue glancing against her skin. Diana’s body arched, her back leaving the chair as a bolt of pure, electric sensation shot through her.
The book struck the floor with a dull, unforgiving thud.
The sound shattered the air, and reality rushed in like ice water. The library, the dying fire, the shadows, and the man kneeling between her thighs.
Her husband. A man who didn’t remember her. A man who, once his memory returned, might recoil from the very heat he had just ignited.
Her stomach clenched. This was borrowed fire, and she was the only one who would get burned when it went out.
“Stop,” she panted, and Alexander froze instantly.
He looked up, confusion flickering through the dark hunger in his eyes. “Diana?”
She didn’t answer. She scrambled back, pulling her robe closed with trembling hands as if shielding herself from a crime. “This was a mistake.”
He rose slowly, the raw heat in his face cooling into a sharp, searching intensity. “A mistake?”
Diana wrapped the robe tighter around herself, as though the thin fabric might restore the distance she had so recklessly allowed to vanish. Her heart was still racing, her skin still burning with the memory of his mouth.
